


Tales from Ylisse

by Ellisama



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Chrobinweek 2015 submissions, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-05 13:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5376905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellisama/pseuds/Ellisama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>((Chrobin Week 2015 submissions))<br/>Day 1 // Class Change: There is nothing quite like washing the blood from your hands at 3am.<br/>Day 2 // AU: When the world is at the brink of destruction, superheroes awaken. Chrom is (un)lucky enough to be one of them.<br/>Day 3 // "They take after you": While Marth defends her door, Emmeryn notices a certain brand in her  eye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. no end to our descent

**Author's Note:**

> Day One : ‘Class Change’  
> Notes: While everyone starts off witty or sweet, I’m starting strong with angst, mentions of murder and contemplated suicide and madness. You’re warned.

There is nothing quite like washing the blood from your hands at 3am, knowing that it takes you longer to do so than it took you to kill the owner, Robin thinks bitterly. Red mixes with water, coloring it lightly. She scrubs under her nails, once, twice. It doesn’t come off entirely, but that too is something she’s gotten used to. Tomorrow she’ll wear gloves, beautiful white ones that match her husband’s clothing. She’ll smile a sweet smile, looking exquisite in a dress that took over two weeks and what seemed like a million fittings to make. She will be a queen, and nobody will suspect a thing. When the body will be found, they will look for a culprit, but they will never even glance her way, of this she is sure. Who would suspect Chrom’s beautiful wife of many years of the murder of a noble?

 It is not arrogance that makes her think this, rather experience. She’s been doing this for awhile now, after all, though it never quite stopped making her stomach squirm. The castle is too quiet at this hour, and all she can hear are her own thoughts. This is never a good thing. She puts her wet hands at her temples, and enjoys the coldness. Her heart is carefully empty, and she forces her mind to mimic it. How long has she been doing this again?

 She counts the years out loud, if only to drown out her own thoughts. The last war ended almost eleven years ago, and she returned less than a year later, her head a mess but her hands clean of Grima’s taint. That had been a good year, the first year of peace. A sense of optimism had ruled the realm and while she recuperated and gave birth to their second child, Chrom finished rebuilding all that the war had broken. He’d become a fine ruler over the years, just and fair. Too fair, perhaps.

As a Queen and former Grandmaster of the Ylissean army, she had been given many tasks in the rebuilding of Ylisse. One of them was the rebuilding of a spy network. Gaius had politely declined the position of becoming a royal spy, saying that with a kid on the way, he was becoming too old for those things. Robin had dismissed his words at the time; he was her age, perhaps a year older, and she was a mother of two to boot, how could he possibly be too old? But he’d smiled warily at her and kept his ground, and eventually she had been forced to let him go. With Lon’qu in Regna Ferox and his son god knows where, there hadn’t really been many other people to take the job save for herself. She’d always been versatile, a trait she was proud of, and she set herself to fulfill this duty for her people as well. Eight years later, she understood that dead look in Gaius’ eyes, even recognized it every morning in the mirror.

At her first assassination, she had thought she was prepared. She’d seen war, had shed blood of both friends and foes in the name of Ylisse. But being an assassin during the war and during peacetime turned out to be a drastically different role. To kill a man that was sure to kill you given the chance was vastly different from putting a blade between a sleeping woman’s ribs at two am, watching her bleed dry before she could wake up from the narcotics she had slipped into her food during dinner. Today, at 3am while the blood of her latest victim colored the water red, she longed for the world to be black and white again, made up only of allies and adversaries.

 But she’d sworn, both at her wedding and at her appointment as chief-tactician, to do everything for Chrom, no matter the cost. And if her personal sanity was what she would have to give for him to be able to rule well, than that was a small price to pay. She’d filed permission for her class change as she always did, but knew Chrom didn’t read it beyond her name. He trusted her, that sweet innocent husband of hers, as his wife, his tactician and as his queen. If he ever wondered why she sometimes disappeared for a few hours only to return with a smile more forced than before, he never voiced his questions. He trusted her, she told herself time and again, and she had sworn to be for him everything he needed her to be. If that meant cleaning up the dirty work while he ruled with a clean conscience, then so be it.

 From a political point of view, assassinations were a clean and easy way to solve a difficult problem. Instead of endless conversations with two rivaling duchies over one unfaithful wife and bastard son, it had been easier to kill the boy and secure both lines of succession. Easier, that was, from a political perspective. Repeatedly putting a poison into the two-year-old’s food over the course of five days had been easy to achieve, but hard to swallow. To see the tiny child rot away from the inside while his frantic mother stood powerless to save him had been something she would never be able to forget. But after the child died, the succession crisis had been averted along with a destructive civil war. When she woke up at night after seeing her own son coughing up blood like the little boy had done in his final days in her dreams, she told herself that many other children would grow up in his place now that a war was averted. It had been the right thing to do, for the greater good. But that didn’t make sleep come easier at night.

 Once her hands were clean enough she returned to her bed, humming a small lullaby. Chrom didn’t wake up; his duties as a King were exhausting to the point that he fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow until the morning sun rose again. She kissed his forehead as she lowered herself besides him. Even in the dim light of the moon, asleep and drooling, he was beautiful. The man that had planned an uprising in Ylisstol would not ruin that pretty face with a frown, she had made sure of that. Tomorrow, when her husband would rise with the sun, all would be right in the realm.

 She closed her eyes and curled up into his arms, which he circled around her on instinct. With her ear against his chest, counting every heartbeat, she could ground herself again. She knew she was going mad, but not in shrieking, laughing way that Gangrel had once done, many years ago. Robin was calm, quiet, and slipping ever deeper, seemingly no end to her descent. Tomorrow she would be the Queen he wanted her to be, ever smiling and ever graceful. Tonight she was the Queen he needed her to be, too far lost to feel the tears fall down her cheeks, forever scratching at skin that would never be clean of blood again.

 Some nights, Chrom’s heartbeat and silent sighs were all that kept her from raising a blade against herself. He was her light, as much as she was his shadow that stood forever in awe of his radiance and would do everything to keep him from knowing the vile, disgusting parts of rulership. Perhaps it was unhealthy to love a man this much, to live only for his continued presence and prosperity. But madness ran in her blood, and even with Grima long gone, Robin could not deny that part of her.

 As long as he never knew, everything was fine. Robin laughed quietly into Chrom’s chest, a dry, bitter sound that could never be confused with mirth. The sweet surrender of sleep would not come that night.


	2. An Inheritance of Ashes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day Two : Alternate universes.   
> In my case, that is a Superhero au (Believe it or not, this is inspired by Miraculous Ladybug.) Rather than being one linear story, these are parts of a larger fic that I intend to write some day. Enjoy my Superhero AU, even though there is little actual Chrobin in it. Its a bit unpolished, and the final story will look slightly different but for now this is fine. This is a rather extended AU, so if you have questions about it, do not be afraid to ask.

“There are reasons we stay hidden,” was one of the first things that they explained to him after his first battle. “Nobody has yet linked the Black Curse survivors to the Salvagers, and we would like to keep it that way. Already some of us have been experimented on, forced to procreate. Those who returned from those facilities will not speak of the horrors they have seen.”

Chrom merely nodded, his vision still hazy. Someone in the background laughed and hit him on his shoulder hard enough to bring him out of his stupor. “He’s still new to this, give him a break Sully.”

The woman scowled, but with kindness in her eyes. “He’s one of us now, and I’d rather have him prepared then leave him to his own devices. I’m doing him a favor.”

They bickered on for awhile about what they should and shouldn’t tell him, but he was too disorientated to listen to them.How did he end up here again? 

Oh, he remembered. Two months ago a Risen had broken into his home and attacked his sisters. His father had been gone as usual and their mother was long dead, leaving only him and the dog to protect them. He’d cut the Risen down with the family sword at the end of a heated battle, but his sister’s safety was bought with a price: the risen had bitten him, creating a bleeding wound that had started to infect before the sun came up again. The fever had struck him before midnight, black spots marring his vision and his body. But unlike his mother, he hadn’t withered away. Within the span of five hours his heart stopped three times, and three times it resumed its beat again. His sister, an aspiring doctor and a firm disbeliever of gods, had called it a miracle. He regained consciousness before the sun rose on the second day, and save for a lingering fever he was fine.

It couldn’t have been the Black Curse, they all agreed, and after burning the corpse in the backyard vowed to never speak of it again, as if he hadn’t almost died. It was better that way, Chrom agreed. No need in reliving a future that never came to be. But his body changed after the fever subsided, and eventually a certain need arose in him that kept him up at night.

One night after many sleepless ones before, Chrom stepped out of their suburban home and wandered the street, searching for something he could not really explain. There was a hunger, a desire that drove his every movement, and yet there was nothing that could sate it. That was, until a Risen leaped out of nowhere in front of him, and his mind went into overdrive. With reflexes he didn’t know he possessed, he dodged a fist aimed for his head and kicked the Risen right in the stomach. His punches were like steel, and no matter how many came for him, they all went down. He felt renewed, more alive than ever since the fever. He didn’t count the bodies that littered around him, nor the punches took, until a man in a mask called out his name.

“Chrom. That is enough.” And like a charm, it had been. The fire in his lungs had been cooled down and his vision had become clear of the red haze that overtook it before. His fists were tainted with rotten blood from the Risen, but not a scratch marred his skin. Slowly, his fatigue caught up with him and his limbs grew heavy. His knees hit the ground, only the hand of the masked stranger keeping his body upright.

“Thanks,” he gritted out between his teeth. His savior merely nodded and helped him to his feet again, dragging him away from the many corpses.

“Shouldn’t we… burn that?” Chrom asked hesitantly as they walked from the carnage. What on earth had possessed him? How was he not dead?

The masked man shook his head. “A cleanup crew should be on their way. Getting you to safety is my first priority.”

And without another word he had been led to this den of renegades that called themselves the Salvagers. The public had a different name for the: Heroes. He’d seen this woman before, the Red Knight, though never without her mask. With the strength of a bull she swung a lance at any Risen that threatened the city of Ylisstol, often accompanied by a the Green Knight. She went by Sully during the day, and apparently he was now one of them.

“So… You’ve all survived the Black Curse?” he dared to ask once he had take a sip of a calming tea a brown haired girl had handed him.

“With varying states of success, yes.” Sully replied, pointing at a man sitting in the corner. “Stahl here was left blind when The Pestilence hit him as a child, but he’s fine nowadays.”

To emphasize her point, Stahl smiled at him and waved, and at that moment Chrom connected a few dots. “You’re the Green Knight, aren’t you?”

Stahl’s smile grew even wider, and his unseeing eyes shone with glee. “You know me! I’m honored!” He cheered, and Chrom tried to spot traces of this soft-spoken man in the fierce warrior that was all over the news every other week before Stahl continued. “Though I wouldn’t know if my armor is green or blue. Sully paints it a different color sometimes, much to Minerva’s despair.”

“W-who?” Chrom asked, feeling like a child. The longer he spend in this room, the more he realized that he knew of most of the people present. They were all heroes that protected Ylisse, most notably the capital of Ylisstol.

Sully noted the distant look in his eyes, and cut him some slack. “That’s too much information, Stahl. Let him cope. This is his first night, it must be though on him. Just relax boy, and take a deep breath. You’re fine. You’re part of the Shepherds from now on, and we look after each other just like we watch over the city.” She turned to a different man with orange hair that was smoking near the window, his eyes focused on the street outside like a hawk. “Is Marth already gone?”

The man nodded, but didn’t meet her eyes. “Quick to leave as always. A man of little words, that one. But his heart is in the right place and that is all that matters nowadays.”

“Marth?” Chrom questioned. So many names, so little sleep.

“Your savior! The blue masked guy with blue hair, just like yours.” The orangehaired man proclaimed with mirth in his voice, and Chrom wondered how he knew that since he hadn’t met his eyes since he had been ushered into this seemingly abandoned building. “He’s a bit of a loner, but he helps out every now and then, and disappears straight after the danger has been averted. That’s good enough for me.”

“Thank him when you meet him again, I’m quite sure we haven’t seen the last of him yet. As for now, you need a name.” Sully stated, puzzling him.

“I’m Chrom.” He repeated it, despite the fact that he had already given her his name when he was first brought here.

Sully roared with laughter, repeating what he had said to her other compagnion over and over again. Before Chrom could feel to insulted, an kind woman took pity on him. “Nice to meet you Chrom, I’m Sumia,“ She told him, shaking his hand as if this were a formal introduction. ”But that’s not what Sully meant. You need a Salvager’s name, an alter ego. I am Lady Fortuna, you might have heard of me.”

Of course he had heard of her. “You were on the news last week, if I remember correctly. I wouldn’t have recognized you today though.” And she was nothing like the fierce, lightning fast woman he had admired for years. He had expected fire in her eyes, not a slight hesitation in every word. All these people were so painstakingly ordinary behind their masks.

“Then Minerva – she is our seamstress by the way –did a good job.” She chimed, a golden smile on her face. “So, how may I call you when we meet again on the battlefield? That is, if you want to help us.” She trailed off, that hesitation back into her voice. For a second she had been Lady Fortuna, the all-powerful super hero, and he had almost automatically said yes.

But his mind was numb and hazy, his body ached and a few hours back he’d been sitting in his bed, ignorant of these people. It was a little too much for 5 am in the morning. “I…. I need to think about this.”

Sumia nodded gravely. “Of course. Take your time. I can bring you home, if you wish. It’s only take the blink of an eye.”

“That would be nice, actually.” Chrom replied with more enthusiasm than he intended. He’d always been a fan of Lady Fortuna, and this was a child’s dream come true.

Sumia took pride in his nervous enthusiasm, and hooked her arm around him. “Then hold on to me, and don’t let go no matter how nauseous you get.” She urged him, and counted down from three.

The next morning Emmeryn remarked that he must have finally slept well last night. When he asked why she thought that, she pointed out the fact that the bags beneath his eyes were finally gone, and Chrom had to admit that he hadn’t felt this awake in weeks.

\------

Over the course of a single year, the world was changed forever by three consecutive events. First came The Pestilence. Mankind sought for a cure, but as child and elder, beggar and king alike fell ill there seemed little hope left for humanity. Some called it the work of God, cleansing the world of her sinful humankind. Others gave up on gods altogether, saying that they had abandoned them. What came to know as the Black Curse swept over the lands without an end, and no prayer nor medicine could stop it from taking more lives every day. But then, two months after the first victim had fallen to the sickness, it was suddenly over, and no one was any wiser why no new victims appeared or if it was only a temporary pause.

Then, when people least suspected it, came The Rot. One could smell it from miles away, the stench. It didn’t take people long to realize that the buried bodies of the late victims were the cause of the smell, rotting in their graves to the extent that not even the deepest grave could conceal it. Before any drastic action could be taken to dig up the corpses and burn them all, the stench became the least of humanities problem.

Finally, less than eight months after the first victim fell to the Black Curse, came The Rising. First it was just a slight tremor in the earth every now and then, a grave marker slightly displaced. But before the week had ended, the first patches of earth had been lifted and from their graves the rotten corpses of cursed ones rose. They roamed, sometimes blind, sometimes deaf, sometimes slow, sometimes fast. Often aggressive, every now and then mumbling words that no one could quite make out. Those who had survived the pandemic now fell to the hands of their loved ones, who that the meat they desired bore the names and faces of their loved ones.

But humanity was not yet lost. Among those vile creatures rose a fortunate few, with right minds and bodies, blessed by the gods to protect mankind with their supernatural powers. Masked men and women, answering a call to protect mankind from the Risen.

Even today, nearly fifteen years after the accursed year, everybody knew of these events. Walls had been build, precautions had been taken to ensure a semblance of a normal life within them. Humanity’s population had been brought back to a quarter of what it had been, but mankind was resilient, or so they taught in the schools.

In reality, these supernatural beings that fought on the side of the non-infected humankind and were so worshiped by the population were little more than former victims themselves. The lucky few, scientists called them in private. The 0.001% that had a natural resistance against the Black Curse suffered a terrible fever, not unlike those doomed, but instead of the rot their body had a different reaction.

Robin remembered it like it was yesterday, being locked up in a children’s hospital where every day another bed became empty and was quickly filled again. She didn’t bother learning other kids’ names after the third day: they were all going to die anyway. Her eyes had been swollen shut at the end of the week, and she’d been glad for it because it meant she didn’t have to look at the dark spots that seemed to eat away her body anymore. She couldn’t remember when she lost conscience permanently, but it must have been somewhere halfway through the third week. The last thing she remembered was a kind nurse singing a soft lullaby to her, a sound of despair in every note. Then, for a long time, there was nothing.

When she came by again, something she had never expected to happen, Robin found she could open her eyes again. The hospital room was empty save for a flickering light and few tubes connecting in her wrist. People had cried that day, praised Naga and Grima alike for the miracle of her recovery. She’d been one of the very first to wake up from the fever, and one of the youngest. She later learned that her entire hall had died of the Black Curse, even the kind nurse.

When The Rot came some doctors half expected the few survivors of the Black Curse to become like the Risen as well, and they weren’t entirely wrong. Robin remembered the stinging pain in her limps, the instinct to bite and that strange lightheadedness. Like the earth had moved inexplicably for the Risen, so did her stuffed Pegasus, without a single touch. By the end of the year she could move objects with her mind alone. Just like all the other survivors, the illness had awakened a dormant part in her body that allowed her to do things no ordinary human could even imagine.

Some people hid their gifts, ridden with survivors guilt or overcome with the urge to become like the Risen. With every cup of tea she lifted with her mind, the hunger crawled in the back of her head, urging her to bite and bite. Some succumbed to that feeling, dying a mindless slave to their inhuman desires.

But others overcame that feeling, and instead took a stand against it in humanities name. Masked and often clad in protective suits, they fought against wayward Risen that threatened the rebuilding of human society, one undead at a time.

Robin’s father had seen to it that she was not one of them. A survivor himself, he knew The Desire and feared a small child might give in to it. And so he forbid her from using her powers, often forcibly. It had not been a good childhood, but he meant well. Still, when she turned sixteen, the desire to help those in need became too strong. That was when she donned the mask of Blackbird and set off into the night.

A superhero, some called her, but she knew better. She wasn’t that selfless. She was doing this for herself alone, to appease that itch in the back of her mind that made her want to use her powers from dusk till dawn and beyond. Still, she figured there were worse addictions than saving people’s lives.

\------

Chrom couldn’t stay away even if he’d wanted too. The next night his legs itched for him to run. Sumia’s incredible speed had left him unaware of the location of the Shepherd’s hideout, and perhaps that had been her purpose all along.

It had taken him four sleep pills before an unspoken voice in his mind calmed down and he was able to sleep for a few hours, although he woke up more tired than he had felt before he had gone to sleep. He quickly scanned through some notes of his college homework –he was going to flunk this class anyway, so why even bother at this point? – and casually watched a report on last night’s events.

After some footage of a woman in black and purple whose name he didn’t know, Lady Fortuna flashed by, only truly visible when she slowed to change direction. Under her elaborate mask he spotted a labored smile, and suddenly the woman from the night before was there, right in front of him, undeniably Sumia. It was only now that he noted that the helm of the Green Knight did not have any eyeholes. He, like all citizens of Ylisse had watched these people fight every other night and yet he was only noticing these things now.

They must be tired, he thought, remembering the bags under Vaike’s eyes. The Axe didn’t seem so tired on the battlefield, but his mask hid him well. Perhaps this was just another thing he hadn’t noticed before.

When the sun set and people barricaded their homes for the night, he didn’t even pretend to himself to go to sleep. Instead he waited for his sister’s to go to bed, fashioned a mask out of an old t-shirt and covered his hair with an old beanie. The itch was back tenfold, and he figured that while he couldn’t sleep anyway, he might as well patrol the neighborhood to prevent incidents like his.

They had found him last time he fought Risen, and he was confident that they would do so again if only he put himself out there. Besides, he never liked leaving people who clearly needed help, even if they happened to be superheroes.

\------

She’d always been a bit of a loner, partially due to her sheltered upbringing. It wasn’t that she didn’t connect well with people, rather that she was afraid to give away too much. At the age of nineteen she had been in this hero business for three years, enough to be called a veteran by most.

In many ways, she was a woman of routine. A cup of black coffee at eight, another one at ten. Once the clock struck eleven, the black and purple suit came on with practiced ease and a mere fifteen minutes later she was out into the night, patrolling the city. By four she would be back into her bed as if she had never left it, leaving her father none the wiser about her nightly activities.

On a good day she could stick to that routine. On a bad day, one thing came up after another and she was forced to adapt to anything that was thrown her way, often returning home minutes before sunrise. Lately, she’d had a string of bad days. But then again she figured that was just her luck.

She always visited the east of Ylisstol right after the north. It was a quiet neighborhood, though lately some inventive Risen had found ways to breach the sewers that led into this part, breaking into many houses. At two am, minutes before she was to move on to the next district, she got a text from Falcon, the Shepherd’s loyal scout.

‘Risen in Akaneia neighborhood. Rookie on his first job. Be gentle~! ;)’

Only Falcon could be so cool and teasing in a life or death situation. The Shepherds were an okay bunch of Salvagers, but this was just lunatic! Who left a rookie on their own on their first job? With haste she sprinted over the rooftops, using her psychic abilities to lift herself from one house to another without a hitch.

Then, she spotted the rookie. Or, who she assumed to be the rookie. He sure didn’t act like it, surrounded by at least four moving risen and at least a dozen more at his feet, a crazed grin on his face. Then, as if lightning passed between them, his fiery eyes met hers, and she was drawn in. Sometimes, her psychic abilities manifested outside of moving objects, but never before had her vision suddenly been illuminated as if the sun had risen in the middle of the night. Instead, it was only the rookie, radiating pure energy to the point that it became visible to her eyes.

Without thinking she was drawn to him and the light he emitted. With practiced ease she drew a rope from her side and let it fly towards two risen, binding them together without coming with their reach. The rookie, crazed as he was, stopped for a split second to watch her bind the two risen together with her mind alone. She allowed a small smile to creep over her face: surely he had never seen a floating woman before. But the second he focused on her eyes again, he acted as if he were a part of her own body, dunking the two heads of the risen against each other once, twice, as many times as it took until they could no longer stand. Robin lifted the corpses up as if they were feathers in the wind, giving the radiating man space for a roundhouse kick against the two Risen that were still standing. He was precise and brutal, and even though his technique was sloppy it did the deed of slamming the them backwards, their skulls cracking on the pavement.

She was impressed, she had to admit. The Risen didn’t even struggle when she lifted them from the ground and tossed them on a large pile. “Do you have a light?” she asked the Rookie, trying not to look directly at him, “And a liter or two of oil would be great as well.”

“For what?”

“Burning these corpses, of course. Like they should have done in the first place.”

When he shook his head she opened the door to the car closest to him, urging him to look for a lighter. She’d left her own at home after it had been damaged last night, not expecting to make a bonfire today. When he couldn’t find anything Robin asked him to open the fuel door so she could ‘borrow’ some of the gas, dumping it all over the piled corpses until they were soaked. That would do nicely.

The Rookie had the gall to look guilty about stealing some fuel, and she scoffed at him. He would learn that what they were doing was for the greater good. The car-owner should be thankful that they used his gasoline to burn the Risen that might otherwise have invaded his home!

After a short search she pulled a lighter from another car, and floated it to the Rookie. “Light it.” She said without real need for the words since he was already on his way to set fire to their little bonfire. It took him three tries until he got it right and the cleansing scent of fire overwhelmed her senses. Before either of them knew it, they had been staring at the little fire or several hours.

“You did well, for a rookie,” Robin complimented him if only to lift the silence, “Do you have a name?”

He shook his head, his eyes still slightly sparkling with the energy that had set them ablaze during his fight. “Not really.”

“Aether then.” She said before she could think about her words. He truly seemed to be made of light, even now it had dimmed to a gentle glow. He was giving her a headache.

With a swift movement she lifted herself from the ground, her eyes checking the time. It was already getting late, and she had rounds to make before her bed called her. “That’s all for now, bonfire man. I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

He could only nod dumbly, waving at her awkwardly. He was tired, and still he emitted enough energy to power half the district. As she saluted him and turned around to vanish again into the dark of the night, she could still feel the glow on her skin, imprinted on her vision. She would definitely see him again. 

\------

It took Chrom a full four days to track the orange haired man down, even after Sully had taken him to their hideout two nights in a row. Two weeks after he had fought together with his mystery lady, he finally cornered him alone. “Why do you call yourselves the Salvagers?” He asked as a way of starting conversation.

The man sighed, lighting up another cigarette. “We’re not heroes, despite what everyone makes us out to be. To think ourselves as heroes would be to lie to ourselves, and let me tell you one thing, after you have spun such a web of lies and deceit like we have done, you have to be honest to one person.” He blew the cloud of smoke into Chrom’s face and smirked that crooked smile of his. “And that person is yourself. You’ll go crazy otherwise, no kidding. I’ve seen it happen before.”

“You’re the Falcon, aren’t you?” It wasn’t really a question, more of an unconfirmed fact. The man had made a few too many eye jokes at this point.

Falcon laughed, a breath of smoke coming from his lips. “That took you shorter than most.” Despite his compliment, there was a teasing tone to his voice before it grew grim. “But yeah. We can’t cure the dead. We can beat them down and not get infected. We can save another life. But for every Risen I have beat down, another has rose from the grave again. We don’t have a cure, no lasting fix for this problem. So we salvage what we can. Some of us team up, others work alone. The name is Gaius. Now, why did you really come to me? I know it’s not to chitchat about my amazing eyes, blue.”

“It’s Chrom… or Aether.” He grit out at the nickname.

Gaius blinked twice, slightly caught off guard. Then a wicked smile stretched his lips, the cigarette in his hand forgotten. “So you did pick a name? Not a bad one, I might add.”

Chrom shook his head. “I didn’t. A woman in black and purple gave it to me after she saved me. I’ve asked around for her, and all people can tell me is that her name is Blackbird and that you are the only one who has her cell phone number.” He explained, thinking back of that night two weeks ago. He’d beaten up Risen again after that night, once with Sully and Stahl and twice with Sumia. But it had never gone as seamlessly as it had that night with Blackbird.

“Hey, blue, you have to understand. A gentleman can’t give out a lady’s number to a suitor just like that. It would be impolite.” Gaius said, his eyes playful, sinking Chrom’s last hope of contacting her. He couldn’t quite explain why he was drawn to her, other than that it had felt right to fight besides her. A single word of hers could temper that rage inside of him that threatened to overcome him every time he fought. Other than her, only Marth had been able to do that.

Some of the disappointment he felt must have been expressed on his face, for Gaius elaborated on his refusal more seriously. “That, and a huge breach in confidence. You do realize my position within the shepherds, right?”

“I have an idea.” Chrom conceded, remembering how he seemed to be everywhere and nowhere when things went downhill. Suddenly, he got an idea. “Then, can you ask her to meet me?”

“I might be able to do that, but what do I get in return?” Gaius drawled out, giving a shrill cry when Chrom pulled a bag of candy from his pouch. Sully had not been able to provide him with more details about Blackbird, but she had been able to give him this, at least. His fingers, quick as lightning, grabbed the bag from Chrom’s hands. “Say no more, I am at your humble service, blueberry. Now what should I tell your date?”

Chrom sighed deeply. “It’s not a date. Tell her to meet me where we met, at 2am.”

“Who knew you were such a romantic, blue?” Gaius teased him back, his cigarette forgotten for a lollypop. “Anyway, I’ll make sure she’s there as long as you keep handing over those sugary delights.”

“You’re easy, you know that?” He said, adding a bar of chocolate on top of the bag he had already gifted, making Gaius eye’s go wild in delight.

“What can I say? I am a man of simple pleasures.” The Falcon admitted, his smile wavering for a split second. “Life is complicated enough as it is.”

And with all that had happened to him in the past few months, Chrom couldn’t exactly disagree with him.

\------

It didn’t take her long to find him after Falcon’s distress call. She hadn’t really believed him at the time, but went to Akaneia just in case he wasn’t messing with her. Which he had been.

On top of two probably-as-good-as-dead Risen she found the Rookie she had teamed up with a few nights prior. His light was dimmer than last time, yet it still threatened to blind her. “So you’re with the Shepherds, huh?” She remarked, revealing her position on the blue car.

The Rookie shook his head. “I’m not with anybody.”

“Good, keep it that way.” She said before she could stop herself. “Though if you had to pick a bunch, the Shepherds aren’t the worst Salvagers around. Try to stay away from the Grimleal and you’ll be fine.”

He seemed to take her words in, mulling them over for a bit. “And you?”

“I’ve always found it that I work best when I don’t have to explain everything I do.” Her voice was more chiding than she would have liked. It wasn’t exactly a lie.

“That’s why you barely said a word last time,” the man recalled and she was forced to also go over her recollection of that day. He’d radiated energy, not unlike he was doing now. But there was something different about him back then. He seemed more grounded now, yet full of questions.

She decided to humor him. “That is what I like about you, Rookie. You didn’t need to hear a word.”

“It’s Aether.” He corrected her, earning himself a raised brow.

“So you kept my little nickname?” Robin said smoothly, covering up her surprise. It had been a spur of the moment thing, and she severely doubted that he realized why she had said that at the time. “A regular prince charming, aren’t you?”

He gave her a positively royal bow, before smiling back at her. “And you, Blackbird right? You said you worked alone, yet you rushed to my side to help me when I needed it.”

Robin shrugged. “I am a Salvager. I save what I can.”

For a second he seemed to hesitate, and then Aether’s energy suddenly spiked, making her quickly look away. “Then help me save this neighborhood. I… I live here. I only became like this because a Risen broke in a few months back.”

“Are you saying you’ve only been Awakened for a few months?” Robin asked, dumbfounded. Impossible. He should be out cold, withering with a fever, covered in black. Yet, here he sat on top of some corpses as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. “How is that possible?” She whispered more to herself than to him.

“You tell me, you’ve been in this hero business for a lot longer than I have.” Aether shrugged, pretending and failing to make her think he didn’t care. Then, his voice became more heavy and his energy died down a bit. “But I haven’t really felt like myself since I’ve ‘Awakened’, as you call it. I’d like to prevent other people from going through what I went through. I want to protect my family.”

For a moment, she thought about popping his little hero bubble, but decided against it. She sighed, resigning herself to her fate. “This is one of my areas, Aether. The fact that you became what you are today is my fault. You have a stellar amount of luck to stand here today, but you wouldn’t have needed it if I had done my job properly.”

Aether frowned deeply. “That seems a bit farfetched. You can hardly blame yourself for every attack in this neighborhood, leave alone Ylisstol.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. The truth remains that this is one of my districts, and that by taking it from my hands I would be able to focus a lot more on the other parts. We’re spread a little thin, if you hadn’t noticed.”

He nodded, and she knew he had seen her words for what they truly were. “Partners, then?” He asked so she didn’t have to.

She allowed a careful smile to spread over her lips. “At least until the sun rises again. Tomorrow night, we’ll see if this partnership works.”

“That’s good enough for me.” He said, and held out his hand for her to shake. What an odd gesture to make, she thought, but couldn’t imagine turning it down.

Little did she know that that handshake was the beginning of a long and very fruitful partnership.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day to be continued in a full story.


	3. Looking into the Eyes of the Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrobinweek Day Three : “They take after you” 
> 
> Again a rather different interpretation of the theme, focusing on the question: what if Emmeryn had recognized Lucina’s branded eye when she defended her bedroom door that night? Mostly family fluff, with Chrobin sprinkled on top.

The second the mask came off, she knew this wasn’t going to end as she had planned. But of all people to recognize her for who she was, she hadn’t expected it to be Emmeryn.

True, she didn’t know her aunt outside of the stories that her father had told her as a child. She was as graceful as she had always imagined her to be, but not as radiant. Perhaps it was the thread looming over her head while she waited in her room for an assassin to end her. There was something resigned about her, a calmness she had never found in either her parents or her sibling.

Perhaps it was this calmness that gave her away, or just her aunts incredibly keen eye. One moment she was smiling at her, asking Lucina if she would perhaps want some tea while she protected her door. She had refused politely, or at least she hoped, but that moment of eye contact had been enough to give her away.

“Is that…?” Her eyes narrowed in disbelief, putting a hand on Lucina’s shoulder to keep  her from turning her eyes away. As if she were petrified, Lucina stood still, allowing Emmeryn to inspect her branded eye. After a few long, tense seconds, she uttered:  “Undeniably… Say, Marth. Who are you exactly?”

“I am… no one.” Lucina uttered after a short while, turning her eyes away in the hope to undo her mistake. But it was already too late for that.

For a second Emmeryn closed her eyes, letting go of her. Then, she sighed deeply as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders. “Are you a bastard of my father? You look even more like him than I do. Is that why you came here? To meet him?” Her eyes were tired beyond her years when she voiced her question.

For a moment, Lucina was tempted to say yes and let her aunt invent her alibi for her. But her own father had always been such an amazing, kind man. Her grandfather’s name instead was a synonym to unnecessary violence and unfounded hatred. It would be a slight to her late father’s memory, and that was the one insult she would not make. So, she shook her head. “I am not.”

Emmeryn frowned deeply, confused. “Then, who are you, if not my sister?”

Lucina looked around, considering the harm the truth could do. All other fighters are too far away from her to hear her words, sound of steel meeting steel drowning out her voice as she whispers: “Your niece.”

Just loud enough for Emmeryn to hear, who shakes her head, fingers rubbing her temples. “Impossible.” She utters, once and again.

Lucina shook her head. “I come from a future, in which you die on this very night and set a string of event in motion that will eventually bring the fall of this kingdom, and with it, the world.”

Before she could explain more, Emmeryn held up her hand. “That seems… Implausible at the very least.”

“I know. But how else would I know of this day? How else could I have known when the Risen would have attacked aunt Lissa, scarring her for life?” With every question, she could see Emmeryn doubt more and more. When in the end she still didn’t believe her, Lucina’s tone turned desperate. “I know it sounds too strange to be true, but believe me. Naga send me, along with my friends, to this world to save it before it is too late. Of my world, of my father, I only have this blade and the brand in my eye as a proof.”

“Then, what becomes of my siblings?” Emmeryn says after a long silence, her voice awfully neutral. “After- after I die that is.” Only the slight stutter betrayed the true turmoil of emotions that must have swirled within her, and Lucina knew that at the very least, she had convinced her aunt.

Lucina lowered her eyes, recounting her younger years. “They grieve, tremendously so. My father takes your throne, though he will resent it forever.” Emmeryn did not look appeased by that, and for not the first time she cursed her own ignorance of the events before her birth. “They…. They take after you. Become more levelheaded, thinking of the realm before their own desires.”

“And marry, and have children, apparently.” Emmeryn adds, a small smile on her lips and her hands gathered at her chest. “The thought warms my heart. With this knowledge I can happily die here tonight, knowing that the Halidom and my siblings will be safe and sound in your hands.” And just like that, her aunt seems to radiate, a true exalt like her father had described her to Morgan and her when they were still young.

“No!” Lucina cries out, hitting a wall with enough force to make it shake ever so slightly, making Emmeryn flinch. When she realized what she did, she calmed herself and forced reason back into her voice. “I have come here to challenge my fate! You will not lay down and die here tonight, not if I have something to say about it!”

For a moment Emmeryn looks at her oddly before the smile returns to her face. “You take after your mother, despite your looks.” She says warmly, and before Lucina can say a thing to deny it, adds: ”Although I will admit that I had not expected my brother to marry a woman he had found in the field. Perhaps I should have seen this coming, by the way they complement each other. Destiny works in mysterious ways, doesn’t it?”

“Is it that apparent?”

“To those who look over them with my eyes, it is.” Emmeryn winks, an amused smile on her lips that wouldn’t be misplaced on Lissa’s. Then, she serious again. “Don’t worry, I will keep my secret in return for a little meeting after this horrible night is over.”

For a second Lucina stills in fear. What if she gives away too much? What if the future changes again, only this time for the worse? But her aunt’s gaze is lovingly and she can’t help but think that if somebody were to know of future events, she would probably the wisest choice. “I-…. Of course, name your price.”

“It won’t be an interrogation, don’t worry! You really are like your mother, always assuming the worst! Ah, and that smile, that is all Robin as well!” Lucina blushes slightly, not used to being compared to her mother. People always liked to point out how much she took after her father and when she looked into the mirror it is him she sees. To know that at least some semblance of her departed mother is still with her is…. Comforting.  “I only want to know of you, of my siblings and any other children they might have. Nothing that will alter the future, only things that will put my heart at ease.”

“I would be honored.” Lucina concedes, bowing deeply. Then, she turns around, drawing Falchion and making it glow within her hands, earning herself an approving smile even if she can’t see it. “But first, I have a fight to win!” She proclaims, dashing for another enemy. She came here to change the future, to create one where her mother is more than a faded memory of a soft smile reflected in the mirror. A future where her aunt is alive, and her family is complete.

She raises her blade high, invoking Naga’s name. For the sake of this future, she will not fail!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please know that originally, Morgan and Owain were going to storm into this in the middle of the conversation, completely ruining the atmosphere. In the end, I decided against it.


End file.
